Science and Engineering Infrastructure for the
21st Century

The role of the NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION

CHAPTER 3

THE ROLE OF THE NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION

NSF LEADERSHIP ROLE

Among Federal agencies, NSF is a leader in providing the academic
research community with access to forefront instrumentation and
facilities. Its history and mission confer this role upon it. NSF
is the only agency charged to broadly "promote the progress
of science; to advance the National health, prosperity, and welfare;
to secure the National defense; and for other purposes".32
While other agencies support S&E infrastructure needed to accomplish
their specific missions, only NSF has the broad responsibility to
see that the academic research community continues to have access
to forefront instrumentation and facilities, to provide the needed
research support to utilize them effectively, and to provide timely
upgrades to this infrastructure.

Because of its unique responsibilities and mission, NSF must address
issues and adopt strategies that are different from those of other
agencies. For example, application mission agencies, such as DoD
and DoE, focus primarily on what is enabled by a facility. NSF's
infrastructure investments must also consider other issues, such
as the educational impacts of the facility on designers, operators,
researchers, and students; the balance of support across disciplines
and fields; and the development of next-generation instruments.
This broad, integrated strategy is reflected in NSF's three strategic
goals, expressed here as outcomes:

People - A diverse, internationally competitive and globally
engaged workforce of scientists, engineers, and well-prepared
citizens

Ideas - Discovery across the frontiers of S&E, connected
to learning, innovation, and service to society

These goals are mutually supportive and each is essential to ensure
the health of the U.S. S&E enterprise. For example, advances
in infrastructure go hand-in-hand with scientific progress and workforce
development. Research discoveries create the need for new infrastructure
and underpin the development of new infrastructure technologies.
In turn, infrastructure developments open up new research vistas
and help to sustain S&E at the cutting edge. The development
of new infrastructure also has an enormous impact on the education
of students who will be the next generation of leaders in S&E.

Except for the South Pole Station and the other Antarctic Program
facilities, NSF does not directly construct or operate the facilities
it supports. Typically, NSF makes awards to external entities, primarily
universities, consortia of universities, or nonprofit organizations,
to undertake construction, management, and operation of facilities.
All infrastructure projects are selected for funding through a competitive
and transparent merit review process. NSF retains responsibility
for overseeing the development, management and successful performance
of the projects. This approach provides the flexibility to adjust
to changes in science and technology while providing accountability
through efficient and cost-effective management and oversight. An
essential added benefit of NSF's model is the opportunity to train
young scientists and engineers by engaging them directly in planning,
construction, and operation of major facilities and large-scale
instrumentation.

Throughout its 50-year history, NSF has enjoyed an extraordinarily
successful track record in providing state-of-the-art facilities
for S&E research and education. NSF management and oversight
have not only enabled the establishment of unique national assets,
but have also ensured that they serve the S&E communities and
the discovery process as intended. Some of the areas where NSF plays
a major Federal funding role are:

Atmospheric and climate change research

Digital libraries for S&E

Biocomplexity and biodiversity research

Exploration of the Earth's mantle

Gravitational physics

High-performance computing and advanced networking

Machine learning and statistics

Cognitive psychology

Ground-based astronomy

Materials research

Oceanography

Plant genomics

Polar research

Seismology and earthquake engineering

ESTABLISHING PRIORITIES FOR LARGE PROJECTS

In identifying new facility construction projects, the S&E
community, in consultation with NSF, develops ideas, considers alternatives,
explores partnerships, and develops cost and timeline estimates.
By the time a proposal is submitted to NSF, these issues have been
thoroughly examined.

Upon receipt by NSF, large facility proposals are first subjected
to rigorous external peer review, focusing on the criteria of intellectual
merit and the broad (probable) impacts of the project. Only the
highest rated proposals - i.e. those that are rated outstanding
on both criteria - survive this process and are recommended to a
high-level review panel comprised of the Assistant Directors and
office heads, serving as stewards for their fields and chosen for
their breadth of understanding, and chaired by the Deputy Director.

The review panel uses a two-stage process. First, it selects the
new start projects it will recommend to the Director for future
NSF support, based on a discussion of the merits of the science
within the context of all sciences that NSF supports. Second, it
places these recommended new-start projects in priority order.

In selecting projects for future support, the panel considers the
following criteria:

Significance of the opportunity to enable frontier research
and education.

Degree of support within the relevant S&E communities.

Readiness of project, in terms of feasibility, engineering
cost-effectiveness, interagency and international partnerships,
and management.

Using these criteria, projects that are not highly rated are returned
to the initiating directorates and may be reconsidered at a future
time. Highly rated projects are then placed in priority order by
the panel. This process is conducted in consultation with the NSF
Director. The review panel and the Director use the following criteria
to determine the priority order of the projects:

How "transformative" is the project? Will it
change the way research is conducted or change fundamental S&E
concepts/research frontiers?

How great are the benefits of the project? How many researchers,
educators and students will it enable? Does it broadly serve many
disciplines?

How pressing is the need? Is there a window of opportunity?
Are there interagency and international commitments that must
be met?

These criteria are not assigned relative weights because each project
has its own unique attributes and circumstances. For example, timeliness
may be crucial for one project and relatively unimportant for another.
Additionally, the Director must weigh the impact of a proposed facility
on the balance between scientific fields, the importance of the
project with respect to national priorities, and possible societal
benefits.

After considering the strength and substance of the Panel's recommendations,
the balance among various fields and disciplines, and other factors,
the Director selects the candidate projects to bring before the
NSB for consideration. The NSB reviews individual projects on their
merits and authorizes the Foundation to pursue the inclusion of
selected projects in future budget requests. In August the Director
presents the priorities, including a discussion of the rationale
for the priority order, to the NSB, as part of the budget process.
The NSB reviews the list and either approves or argues the order
of priority. As part of its budget submission, NSF presents this
rank-ordered list of projects to OMB. Finally, NSF submits a prioritized
list of projects to Congress as part of its budget submission.

CURRENT PROGRAMS AND STRATEGIES

Table 4 indicates that the FY 2003 budget estimate for facilities
and other Tools totaled $1,122 million, representing about 22.3
percent of the overall NSF budget request. Over the past few years
this number has ranged from 22 percent to 26 percent. The FY 2004
budget request for Tools is $1,340 million, which is about 24.5
percent of the total.

In the category of Research Resources, a range of activities are
supported, including multiuser instrumentation; the development
of instruments with new capabilities, improved resolution or sensitivity;
upgrades to field stations and marine laboratories; support of living
stock collections; facility-related instrument development and operation;
and the support and development of databases and informatics tools
and techniques. Not included in Table 4 are more than 300 NSF-supported
research centers receiving a total of $372 million in NSF support
and leveraging additional external support of $319 million (mostly
university and industrial matching.) 33

NSF centers have been outstanding catalysts for the acquisition
and deployment of major infrastructure investments. For example,
many of the Engineering Research Centers and Materials Research
Science and Engineering Centers acquire, maintain and update extensive
shared facilities and testbeds, often with major equipment donations
from industry partners. These facilities often serve as shared campus-wide,
statewide, or regional facilities.

Table 4. NSF Investment in Tools, FY 2002-2004

Table 5 contains data on NSF's investment in Tools by major activity:
the seven NSF directorates, the OPP, Integrative Activities (IA),
and the Major Research Equipment and Facilities Construction (MREFC)
Account.

BIO invests about 10 percent of its annual budget in the Tools
category. Heretofore, the typical infrastructure investments have
been in small to medium size instrumentation, such as mass spectrometers,
electron microscopes, and genomic sequencers, and in stock centers,
natural history collections, and searchable biological databases.
The biological sciences are undergoing a profound revolution, based
largely on the use of genomics data and IT advances. Hence, there
are indications that BIO's future infrastructure requirements will
increase substantially. (The future needs and opportunities of each
directorate are discussed in the next section of the report.)

CISE supplies the critical infrastructure needs not only for computer
S&E research, but also for other sciences and engineering that
require high end computational and communications capabilities.
Its infrastructure investment is large -28 percent of its budget
- and growing rapidly. Much of the infrastructure budget provides
support for two major projects: the Terascale Computing Systems
(TCS) and the Partnerships for Advanced Computational Infrastructure
(PACI). Additionally, CISE currently provides support for small
to medium-end activities for more than 200 research universities.
Resources range over the breadth of the cyberinfrastructure and
include computational resources, networking testbeds, software and
data repositories, and instruments.

ENG direct investment in Tools is small - only 1 percent of its
budget - largely comprised of support for the NNUN. However, this
direct investment is augmented by ENG's equipment investment through
research grants and at NSF-supported centers, such as the Engineering
Research Centers and the Earthquake Engineering Research Centers.
These centers also attract a considerable investment in industry
matching funds. ENG also supports the Network for Earthquake Engineering
Simulation (NEES), which is funded from the MREFC Account.

EHR's current infrastructure consists of the people, computing
equipment and networks, physical facilities, instrumentation, and
other components that drive educational excellence and support the
integration of research with education. In FY 2002, EHR will invest
nearly $25 million in the National Science, Technology, Engineering,
and Mathematics Education Digital Library (NSDL), a national resource
that will aid researchers and educators in the development and dissemination
of teaching and learning resources.

GEO spends approximately 36 percent of its total budget on infrastructure
and also relies heavily on the MREFC Account. Because of its inherently
observational nature, cutting-edge research in the geosciences requires
a vast range of capabilities and diverse instrumentation, including
ships and aircraft, ground-based observatories, laboratory and experimental
analysis instruments, computing capabilities, and real-time data
and communication systems.

MPS currently invests about 24 percent of its overall budget annually
in the Tools category, most of which goes to the larger facilities.
Like GEO, the disciplines represented by MPS require extensive observational
facilities and other infrastructure. In addition, MPS facilities
rely heavily on support from the NSF-wide MREFC Account.

SBE invests about 18 percent of its budget in infrastructure, comprised
chiefly of distributed facilities that do not require large construction.
This infrastructure includes new data collections that serve a broad
range of scholars; digital libraries, including data archives; shared
facilities that enable new data to be collected; and centers that
promote the development of new approaches in a field.

OPP supports research across all disciplines in the two polar regions,
ranging from archaeology and astrophysics to biology and space weather.
OPP invests 73 percent of its budget in Tools and supports large
scientific instruments; laboratories; facilities for housing, health
and safety, food service, and sanitation; satellite communications;
transportation (including fixed-wing aircraft, helicopters, and
research ships); and data and database management, all requiring
significant investment in ongoing maintenance and operations in
an unforgiving climate. This infrastructure is provided for the
benefit of all the research programs supported by NSF's directorates,
as well as the Federal mission agencies and other institutional
partners.

NSF-wide Infrastructure Programs

Major Research Equipment and Facilities Construction (MREFC)
Account: NSF established the MREFC Account in 1995 to better
manage the funding of large facility projects, such as accelerators,
telescopes, research vessels, and aircraft, all of which require
peak funding over a relatively short period of time. Previously,
such projects were supported within NSF's Research and Related Activities
(R&RA) Account. The MREFC Account supports facility projects
that provide unique research and education capabilities at the cutting
edge of S&E, with costs ranging from several tens to hundreds
of millions of dollars. It provides funding for acquisition,
construction, and commissioning in contrast to other activities,
such as planning, design and development, and operations and maintenance,
which are funded from the R&RA Account.

Table 6 indicates the projects supported by the MREFC Account since
its inception. Included are several projects approved by the NSB
but still waiting funding.

While the MREFC model has served NSF well, there are a number of
issues that NSF is currently examining in its effort to provide
the best support for large facility projects, such as:

How large should a project be before it can be considered for
MREFC funding?

When should large infrastructure projects be supported within
directorate budgets versus the MREFC Account?

What costs should be charged to the MREFC Account versus the
R&RA Account?

How should budget priorities be established across different
fields and disciplines?

How should these large projects be managed?

Major Research Instrumentation (MRI): The MRI program supports
instrumentation having a total cost ranging from $100,000 to $2
million. It seeks to improve the quality and expand the scope of
research and foster the integration of research and education by
providing instrumentation for research-intensive learning environments.
In FY 2003 NSF has requested $54 million for this program to support
the acquisition and development of research instrumentation for
academic institutions. 34
This amount falls far short of meeting the real needs and opportunities,
based on the survey of directorate needs and the amount of MRI proposals
received in FY 2002.

Small instrumentation in research grants: In the past decade,
NSF's strong support for individual investigator (and small groups
of investigators) research has held steady. However, equipment within
a research grant has declined from 6.9 percent to 4.4 percent of
the total grant budget. This decline is partly because the average
size of NSF research grants has not kept pace with inflation. Other
issues include the increasing cost of new instruments, the need
to replace large bulky instruments with smaller and faster instruments,
and most of all, the need for computers and interfaces for the acquisition
of large data sets from midrange or larger centers or sites. The
potential for remote access to and operation of instruments at larger
centers or sites is a key aspect of future investments at this level.
In addition to increased funding for special programs, such as MRI,
increasing the average size of an NSF research grant will help address
the need for more attention to small-scale infrastructure.

FUTURE NEEDS AND OPPORTUNITIES

Table 7 summarizes the 10-year projection of future S&E infrastructure
requirements identified in reports provided by each of the NSF directorates
and OPP. The degree of specificity employed in identifying the requirements
ranged from listing specific facilities and instrumentation to providing
rough estimates for broad categories of infrastructure needs. Hence,
the $18.9 billion estimate of funding needed over the next 10 years
must be viewed as a rough indication of need, and not one that has
been assessed and formally endorsed by the NSB. In order to view
the commonalities and differences between scientific fields, a summary
of the infrastructure needs of each directorate and office is presented
below.

Table 7. NSF Future Infrastructure Needs, FY
2003-2012

BIO: The use of information technology and
the development of numerous new techniques have catalyzed explosive
research growth and productivity. However, infrastructure investments
have not kept up with the expanding needs and opportunities. For
example, there is an increasing need to develop, maintain and explore
huge interoperable databases that result from the determination
of complete genomes. In order to thrive in the future, biological
researchers will need new large concentrated laboratories where
a variety of experts meet and work on a daily basis. They will also
need major distributed research platforms, such as the National
Ecological Observatory Network (NEON), that link together ecological
sites, observational platforms, laboratories, databases, researchers
and students from around the globe. An essential and neglected aspect
of support for biological research is the provision of resources
to make automated data analysis and interpretation procedures publicly
accessible and easily usable by all investigators. Increasingly,
published results are derived from intensive automated data analysis
and modeling and cannot be reproduced or checked by other researchers
without access to the software, which was often developed for a
specific research project.

CISE: In the future, substantial investments must be made
in providing increasingly powerful computational infrastructure
necessary to support the increasing demands of modeling, data analysis
and interpretation, management, and research. CISE researchers will
require testbeds to develop and prove experimental technologies.
CISE must also expand the availability of high performance computing
and networking resources to the broader research and education community.
Effective utilization of advanced computational resources will require
more user-friendly software and better software integration. Funding
for highly skilled technical support staff is essential to encouraging
broader participation by the community in the evolving cyberinfrastructure.

EHR: The directorate's future needs include electronic collaboratory
spaces in support of research and instruction; centers for disseminating
and validating successful educational materials and practices at
all levels; increased computational capacity for needs in modeling
and simulation in systems research and in learning settings; and
databases of international and domestic student learning indicators.

ENG: The rapid pace of technological change will require
ENG to invest significantly more funds for research instrumentation
and instrumentation development, multiuser equipment centers, and
major networked experimental facilities, such as the National Nanotechnology
Infrastructure Network, and the NEES. Needs for research tools are
diverse, ranging from high-speed, high-resolution imaging technology
to study gene development and expression to a suite of complex instruments
that enables the simulation, design, and fabrication of novel nano-
and micro-scale structures and systems. In addition, substantial
investment is needed to enable engineering participation in grid
activities, to facilitate collaborations between engineering and
computer science researchers, and to develop tools (including improved
teleoperation and visualization tools, integrated analytical tools
to support real-time analysis of processes, multiscale modeling,
and protocols for shared analytical codes and data sets).

GEO: In the future, the geosciences research community will
require new state-of-the-art observing facilities and research platforms.
Many of these facilities must be mobile and/or distributed over
wide geographic locations. The increased need for distributed, interdependent
observing systems will require better networking technologies, faster
access to data bases and models, real-time access to data from observing
platforms, and remote control of complex instruments. The increased
demands for climate and environmental modeling will require high-end
computational capabilities (petaflop) and new visualization tools.
An essential element in future advances is the ability to integrate
data from multiple observatories into models and data sets. The
necessity of support, noted above for biology, for publicly accessible
and usable data analysis and interpretation software applies equally
here.

MPS: Mathematical and physical sciences researchers seek
answers to fundamental science questions that have the potential
to revolutionize how we think about nature (e.g. the origin of mass,
the origin of the matter-antimatter asymmetry of the universe, the
nature of the accelerating universe, and the structure of new materials).
Such research increasingly requires more expensive and sophisticated
instruments that range from the relatively small to the very large,
such as radio observatories, neutron scattering, x-ray synchrotron
radiation, high magnetic fields, neutrino detectors, and linear
colliders. In addition, increased investments are needed in cyberinfrastructure
to facilitate the conduct of science in the rapidly changing environment
surrounding the massive petabyte data sets from astronomy and physics
facilities.35
Investments include high-speed communication links, access to teraflop
computing resources, and electronic communications and publishing.

OPP: With the growing realization that the polar regions
offer unique opportunities for research - in fields as disparate
as neutrino-based astrophysics and evolutionary biology at the genetic
level - comes the need for increasingly sophisticated and diverse
new instrumentation. Progress in areas such as climate change research
will hinge on the development of distributed observing systems adapted
to function in the harsh polar environment with minimum on-site
maintenance and power requirements. Automated, intelligent underwater
and airborne robotic systems will be essential in providing safe
and effective access to sub-ice and atmospheric environments. High-speed
connectivity to the South Pole Station must be improved to enable
scientists to control instruments from stateside laboratories and
to analyze incoming data in real time. Finally, the basic infrastructure
that enables scientists to survive in polar regions, especially
in Antarctica, must be maintained and improved.

SBE: Research in the social, behavioral and economic sciences
is increasingly a capital-intensive activity. Social science research,
for example, is increasingly dependent on the accumulation and processing
of large data sets, requiring large computer facilities, access
to state-of-the art information technologies, and employment of
trained, permanent staffs. Advances in computational techniques
are radically altering the research landscape in many of our communities.
Examples include automated model search aids, sophisticated statistical
methods, modeling, access to shared databases of enormous size,
new statistical approaches to the analysis of large databases (data
mining), Web-based collaboratories, virtual reality techniques for
studying social behavior and interaction, and the use of computers
for online experimentation.

Areas of Particular Priority

The demand for new S&E infrastructure is driven by scientific
opportunity and the needs of researchers; hence, it is field
dependent. However, it is not the purpose of this report to
provide a detailed examination of the opportunities and needs for
each scientific discipline and field. There are many discipline-specific
surveys, studies and reports that do this quite well. Rather, in
examining the range of need and opportunities identified in the
NSF directorate reports, it is useful to consider the needs and
issues they have in common. For example, the directorates identified
the following areas as having particular priority:

Cyberinfrastructure: Advances in computational and
communications technology are radically altering the research landscape
for scientists and engineers in many disciplines. In the future,
these researchers must be prepared to develop, manage and exploit
an even more rapid evolution in the tools and infrastructure that
empower them. Virtually all of the directorates and offices cited
cyberinfrastructure as a top investment priority. The following
were noted as priority needs:

Accessing the next generation of information systems including
grid computing, digital libraries and other knowledge repositories,
virtual reality/telepresence, and high-performance computing and
networking and middleware applications.

Expanding the availability of high-performance computing
and networking resources to the broader research and education
community. As more extensive connection across the S&E community
is supported, the utility of the resources to current users must
also be sustained. Collaboration and coordination with State and
local infrastructure efforts will also be essential. The overall
goal is to provide resources and build capacity for smaller institutions
while continuously enabling new research directions at the high
end of computing performance.

Providing computational infrastructure necessary to support
the increasing demands of modeling, data analysis and management,
and research. Computational resources at all levels, from desktop
systems to supercomputing, are needed to sustain progress in S&E.
The challenge is to provide scalable access to a pyramid of computing
resources from the high-performance workstations needed by most
scientists to the teraflop-and-beyond capability critically needed
for solving the grand-challenge problems.

Increasing the ability to integrate data sets from multiple
observatories into models and physically consistent data sets.
Development of techniques and systems to assimilate information
from diverse sources into rational, accessible, and digital formats
is needed. Envisioned is a Web-accessible hierarchical network
of data/information and knowledge nodes that will allow the close
coupling of data acquisition and analysis to improve understanding
of the uncertainties associated with observations. The system
must include analysis, visualization, and modeling tools.

Improved modeling and prediction techniques adequate
for data analysis under modern conditions, which include enormous
data sets with large numbers of variables, intricate feedback
systems, distributed databases with related but non-identical
variable sets, and hierarchically related variables. Academic
groups, despite inadequate interfaces and support, now implement
many of the most advanced techniques as freeware.

Maintaining the longevity and interoperability of a growing
multitude of databases and data collections.

Large Facility Projects: Over half of the needs identified
by the directorates fell in the category of "large" infrastructure;
i.e., projects with a total cost of $75 million or more. The reality
is that many important needs identified 5 to 10 years ago have not
been funded and the scientific justifications for those facilities
have grown. In the past couple of years, the number of large projects
approved for funding by the National Science Board, but not yet
funded, has grown. The FY 2003 appropriation for the MREFC Account
is about $148 million. It will require an annual investment of at
least $350 million for several years to address the backlog of research
facilities construction projects.

Midsize Infrastructure: Many of the NSF directorates
identified a "midsize infrastructure" funding gap. While
there is no precise definition of midsize infrastructure, for the
purposes of this report it is assumed to have a total construction/installation
cost of ranging from millions to tens of millions of dollars. Examples
of infrastructure needs that have long been identified as very high
priorities but that have not been realized include acquisition of
an incoherent scatter radar to fill critical atmospheric science
observational gaps; replacement of an Arctic regional research vessel;
replacement or upgrade of submersibles; beam line instrumentation
for neutron science; and major upgrades of computational capability.
In many cases the midsize instruments that are needed to advance
an important scientific project are research projects in their own
right, projects that advance the state-of-the-art or that invent
completely new instruments. These are not suitable for funding with
the MREFC account owing to their mix of research and instrument
construction, but they are essential if NSF is to continue to be
the agency whose work leads to developments like MRI and laser eye
surgery - developments that had their roots in research on advanced
instrumentation.

Maintaining and Upgrading Existing Infrastructure:
Obtaining the money to maintain and upgrade existing research facilities,
platforms, databases, and specimen collections is a difficult challenge
for universities. IT adds a new layer of complexity to already complex
science and engineering instruments. The design and build time for
large instruments can be two to four generations of IT; while IT
must be "planned in" - it cannot be designed in afterwards.
Instruments with long lifetimes must consider upgrade paths for
IT systems that will enable enhanced sensors, data rates or other
improved capabilities. The challenge to NSF is how to maintain and
upgrade existing infrastructure while simultaneously advancing the
state-of-the-art.

Instrumentation Research: Increased support for research
in areas that can lead to advances in instruments, in terms of cost
and function, is critically important. Such an investment will be
cost effective because skipping even one generation of a big instrument
may save hundreds of millions of dollars. Also, totally new instruments
can open doors to new research vistas. In addition, industry is
rapidly transforming the tools developed in support of basic research
into the tools and technologies of industry. At the same time, industry
is increasingly relying on NSF-sponsored fundamental research programs
in universities for the initial development of such tools.

Multi-Disciplinary Infrastructure Platforms: As the
academic disciplines become intertwined, there is an increasing need
for sites where multidisciplinary teams can interact and have access
to cutting edge tools. Such facilities must be shared among a number
of researchers

much as a telescope is shared among a number of astronomers. The sharing
of such facilities, in turn, requires investigators to become more
collaborative and work in new ways. This will require increased attention
to multidisciplinary training. Open technological platforms offer
high-quality instrumentation and technological services to researchers
and institutions that could not otherwise afford them. Networks can
help guide users, provide services, and encourage interaction between
different communities.

Polar Regions Research: NSF infrastructure in the
polar regions enables research supported not only by OPP and most
other NSF Directorates, but also by the Nation's mission agencies,
notably NASA, the Department of Interior (DoI), DoE, and the Department
of Commerce (DoC). The new South Pole Station will to enable this
research; however, improved transportation to the station will be
needed as will continuous high-bandwidth capability for data transfer
and connectivity to the cyberinfrastructure. In addition, NSF infrastructure
at McMurdo Station, the base for South Pole and remote field operations,
needs to be maintained at a faster pace than has occurred in recent
years. Finally, many fields of science require access to polar regions
during the winter months, a capability that currently can be supported
only to a very limited extent.

Education and Training: Investments that expand the educational
opportunities at research facilities have already had an enormous
impact on students. Many of these investments can be
further leveraged by new activities that reach out to K-12 students
and influence the teaching of science and mathematics. Similarly,
the public's direct participation in advanced visualization access
to national research facilities can open a much-needed avenue for
public involvement in the excitement of scientific discovery and
the creative process of engineering.

Infrastructure Security: The events of September
11, 2001 increased awareness of important security issues with respect
to protecting the Nation's S&E infrastructure. Examples include:

Preventing attacks on S&E infrastructure to destroy valuable
national resources and disrupt U.S. science and technology.

Preventing use of S&E infrastructure, such as shared research
Web sites, for destructive purposes.

Ensuring security, confidence, and trust in S&E databases.

The increasingly distributed and networked nature of S&E infrastructure
means that problems can propagate widely and rapidly. Infrastructure
security requires innovations in IT to monitor and analyze threats
in new settings of global communications and commerce, asymmetric
threats, and threats emanating from groups with unfamiliar cultures
and languages. The U.S. and its international partners face unprecedented
challenges for ensuring the security, reliability and dependability
of IT-based infrastructure systems. For example, the major barriers
to realizing the promise of the Internet are security and privacy
issues - research issues requiring further study - and the need
for ubiquitous access to broadband service. Current middleware and
strategic technology efforts are attempting to address these problems,
but a significantly greater investment is needed to do so successfully.